ROME 



ROME 



ua> stemmed, but their reigns were short and 

 they accomplished nothing permanent. 



Diocletian (284-305), under whom occurred 

 the last frightful persecution of the Christians, 

 perceived that one man could not administer so 

 great an empire, and divided the state into 

 East and West empires, making Maximian joint 

 emperor, and from that time on there are two 

 parallel streams of Roman history. The disso- 

 lution had begun ; but under the great Constan- 

 tine, who was sole ruler from 323 to 337, the 

 state was again united. He made Christianity 

 the state religion, and moved the center of 

 government from Rome to a newly-founded 

 city on the Bosporus, which he called Con- 

 stantinople. After Constantine's death came 

 another period of wild disorder, during which 

 the only living, growing thing in the Empire 

 seemed. to be the Church. Julian (361-363), 

 called the Apostate, tried to restore paganism, 

 but the Church had become too strong to be 

 overthrown. 



The Fall. Occasionally an emperor or a 

 general arose who was strong enough to beat 

 back the barbarians Huns, Goths, Franks, Ale- 

 manni or Visigoths who were threatening the 

 frontiers, but it became clear that the end of 

 Rome's power was approaching. Theodosius 

 the Great (379-395) might in a more favorable 

 time have proved one of the strongest of the 

 emperors, but even his efforts were in vain. In 

 410, when the genius of the famous general 

 Stilicho was no longer opposed to them, the 

 Goths under the ruthless Alaric ravaged the 

 peninsula of Italy, and for three days pillaged 

 Rome. The legions had to be withdrawn from 

 the provinces to protect the city, and every- 

 where the barbarians pressed in. The Visigoths 

 took Spain and Southern France, the Vandals 

 possessed themselves of Northern Africa, and 

 the Huns laid waste the Eastern districts. In 

 451 the Huns under Attila were turned back 

 from Rome only by the pleas of Leo the Great, 

 bishop of Rome. Four years later the Vandals 

 sacked the city, and then for a period the 

 Suevic Ricimer was supreme in the city, though 

 there was still a nominal emperor. 



The powerless ruler in 476 was a boy who 

 bore, strangely enough, the name of Romulus, 

 founder of the city. Perceiving his weakness, 

 Odoacer placed himself at the head of all the 

 hired troops in the city and dethroned Romu- 

 lus, and took the title of king of Italy. Thus 

 the Roman Empire was brought to an end, 

 though in the time of Charlemagne the name 

 came into vogue again in connection with that 



strange creation, the Holy Roman Empire 

 (which see). For the Eastern Roman Empire, 

 j^ee BYZAN.TINE EMPIRE. 



How the City Looked. The city which was 

 the center of this vast Empire naturally bore 

 in its long history many aspects, but the best- 

 known one is that which it presented in the 

 days of Augustus. He "found a city of wood 

 and left one of marble," it was said, but most 

 of the streets were narrow and crooked, and 

 some of them were very dirty and squalid. 

 Some parts, however, with their white marble 

 buildings, their porticoes and triumphal arches, 

 were marvelously beautiful. Just what the lim- 

 its of the city were in those days cannot be 

 known, but it was doubtless somewhat larger 

 than the later walled city; for it was not until 

 the days of Aurelian (270-275) that a line of 

 fortifications was built about the city. Nor is 

 it possible to determine just the population 

 of the city. Some authorities declare that in 

 the days of the early Empire it was 2,000,000, 

 but this is regarded by most scholars as an ex- 

 travagant estimate. 



The centers of the city's life were the fora 

 (plural of forum), or open places for public 

 meetings, and one of these was so much more 

 important than the others that it was called the 

 Roman Forum. Far more splendid, however, 

 was the forum of Trajan, about which were 

 grouped some of the most beautiful buildings 

 of the city. Here stands to this day the great 

 Column of Trajan with its sculptures which 

 have revealed to modern scholars much about 

 the customs and methods of fighting, as well as 

 about the history of Trajan's day. 



The Romans were famous for their engineer- 

 ing works, and most of all, perhaps, for their 

 roads. Within the city the chief street was the 

 Via Sacra, or Sacred Way, which ran from the 

 Forum to the summit of the Capitoline Hill, 

 where stood the oldest and most sacred temple 

 in the city that of Jupiter Capitolinus. Along 

 this road, whose lava-block pavement is still 

 in fairly good condition, passed the famous 

 triumphal processions of the emperors and gen- 

 erals, as they returned from victorious wars. 

 Without were those world-famous roads, the 

 Appian Way and the Flaminian Way. Then 

 there were wonderful sewers, of which the most 

 famous, the Cloaca Maxima, is still in use, 

 though it was built in the time of the kings; 

 and the aqueducts through which water was 

 brought to the city from the far-away Apen- 

 nines. Some of these still carry the city's 

 water supply. See AQUEDUCT. 



